Now *this* is a guitar wankfest I can get behind

Ben Lapps was in his mid-teens when this was made. There’s a few things I really like about it. The first is the way he hears the request, pauses, thinks about it, looks down at the guitar and kid of shrugs his shoulders and begins. The second is the fun he’s having, most guitar wankers are so serious and look as if they are passing gas or something worse. The third delight is the apparent obliviousness of the roadies setting up the equipment behind him.

Most music fans are sensible enough to know that it is not realistic to expect artists to stand pat on their own musicianship. We know that our first experience of an artist, that first rush of discovery, will rarely be duplicated by the same artist in the same way later in their career. Artists want to develop and “grow” and so they move on and away from the psychic spot they hold in the fans’ lizard brain. So it’s with some regret (but no real surprise) that we see Ben, recorded some years later, turning into a serious wanker. The technique is still amazing, but the delight has evaporated: